A bear cub that was spotted in west Little Rock on Monday afternoon was caught and euthanized, officials said.
Little Rock police received a call of a vicious animal near the 14000 block of Longtree Drive at around 3:30 p.m., according to dispatch records.
Responding authorities found the 1-year-old bear in a nearby tree and tranquilized it, Keith Stephens, spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said in an interview on Tuesday. A video shared by the Little Rock Fire Department shows rescuers waiting below to catch the cub.
After the rescue, officials euthanized the animal per department policy, Stephens said. According to Stephens, the bear was caught in Benton, tagged and relocated late last week before turning up in Little Rock on Monday.
“It’s been our policy that if they come back into an area where people are that we euthanize them,” he said.
Stephens said it’s common to spot younger bears in both rural and near urban parts of Arkansas in springtime, as their mothers send their cubs out on their own, “just like a mother pushing a teenager out.”
“We can’t allow bears to become habituated,” he said. “When they see people and everything they kind of connect that to food, so we can’t risk somebody getting injured by a bear that’s lost that fear of humans.”